Question: The manager at Vanessa's Furniture Store is trying to figure out how much to charge for a book shelf that just arrived. If the book shelf was bought at a wholesale price of $138.00 and Vanessa's Furniture Store marks up all furniture by 50%, at what price should the manager sell the book shelf?
Explanation: In order to find the retail price, we must first find the amount of markup. Remember that a markup rate is a percentage of the wholesale price that a store adds to get a selling or retail price. With this knowledge, we can figure out the following equation: markup rate $\times$ wholesale price $=$ amount of markup Since the markup rate is a percentage, we have to convert it into a decimal first. Percent means "out of one hundred," so $50\%$ is equivalent to $\frac{50}{100}$ which is also equal to $50 \div 100$ $50 \div 100 = 0.50$ Now you have all the information you need to find the amount of markup! $0.50$ $\times$ $$138.00$ $=$ $$69.00$ Since the markup rate is a percentage of the wholesale price that is added to get the retail price, we can find the retail price with the following equation: amount of markup $+$ wholesale price $=$ retail price $$69.00$ $+$ $$138.00$ $=$ $$207.00$ The retail price of the book shelf should be $$207.00$.